Brands
Amazon’s policy chief skips over to Meta
NEW DELHI: Aman Jain has clearly mastered the art of the big-tech shuffle. After a two-year stint steering Amazon through India’s treacherous regulatory waters as director of public policy, he is decamping next month to Meta as senior director and country head of public policy. It is a timely move: Meta’s family of apps—WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook—dominate Indian screens, yet face mounting scrutiny from regulators who seem to discover new ways to make Mark Zuckerberg’s life difficult every quarter.
He steps into Shivnath Thukral’s shoes, who left Meta earlier this year to join fintech major PhonePe. Jain is expected to take charge in early 2026 and will report directly to vice president of policy for Asia Pacific (APAC) Simon Milner.
Jain is no stranger to navigating Delhi’s labyrinthine corridors of power. His CV reads like a greatest-hits compilation of tech giants grappling with Indian bureaucracy. He spent over seven years at Google, ascending from policy manager to head of government affairs, with a brief detour as industry head for fintech. Before Amazon came calling in late 2023, he had already cut his teeth advising India’s minister of youth affairs and sports and consulting for the US Department of Justice.
The appointment suggests Meta is girding itself for policy battles ahead. India, with its 750 million internet users, is too lucrative to lose but too complex to navigate without serious local firepower. Jain’s LinkedIn post gushes about Meta’s “vibrant creator and small business ecosystem”—code, perhaps, for the monetisation engine that regulators increasingly want to tax, regulate or simply understand.
His earlier career offers intriguing texture. As president and chief executive of Aiesec International from 2009 to 2010, he ran a global youth organisation spanning 110 countries, wrangling a diverse 18-person team and achieving 50 per cent growth. Not bad for someone in their twenties.
Later roles at Peter & David Enterprises and various Washington think-tanks added private-sector nous and American policy chops to his repertoire.
Meta’s gambit is clear: hire someone who knows how Delhi thinks, how Silicon Valley operates, and how to keep both reasonably happy. Whether Jain can square that circle whilst India’s government tightens the regulatory screws remains the billion-dollar—or should that be billion-rupee—question.
Brands
PeopleStrong appoints Adishri Charla SVP marketing to drive global growth
Former UiPath marketing head to scale brand, demand and expansion across regions
NEW DELHI: PeopleStrong has brought in marketing heavyweight Adishri Charla as senior vice president, marketing, tasking her with sharpening the company’s global brand and fuelling its next phase of growth.
Charla steps in with nearly two decades of B2B marketing experience across both fast-moving start-ups and global technology giants. She joins from UiPath, where she served most recently as director and head of marketing for India and Saarc, playing a key role in the automation firm’s rise to category leadership in the region. Her work there ranged from revenue-driven marketing strategies to building strong customer and community engagement programmes.
At PeopleStrong, Charla will oversee global brand strategy, demand generation and customer engagement as the HR tech firm expands across India, Asia, the Middle East and other emerging markets.
CEO Sandeep Chaudhary said the company was looking for a leader who could connect brand storytelling with measurable business outcomes. “Adishri brings global marketing experience and strong team leadership. We are confident she will help sharpen our positioning and support our next phase of expansion,” he said.
Charla previously held marketing roles at Oracle India and IBM India, working across cloud, systems and product marketing. An MBA graduate from Symbiosis Centre for Management and HR Development, she has also completed executive programmes at Columbia Business School and ISB.
Sharing her excitement about the move, Charla said PeopleStrong has the potential to reshape how organisations across the region think about HR technology. She added that her focus will be on building stronger brand connections while driving measurable business impact.
Backed by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, PeopleStrong today serves more than 500 enterprises and has won several industry recognitions, including honours at the ET Human Capital Awards and the People Matters Infini-T Awards. Charla’s appointment signals the company’s intent to strengthen leadership as it scales its global ambitions.
